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When is a lie a lie? When is hiding something a lie? When is not telling everything a lie? Whose on first?
So many questions, so little time it seems. I’m amazed at the fact that the city council refuses to listen to the fact that the residents of Santa Clara may know something more than them. Wow, Mayor Mahan shut down the discussion, oops I should say refused to second a proposal put forward by Jamie McLeod that the city look at the CHP’s traffic concerns on Lawrence and El Camino. When I used to run meetings in the ‘old days’ – yep I’m old now! It was common practice for the chair to second an amendment or a proposal if it couldn’t get a seconder. That’s what you do if you are a ‘nice’ chairperson. It’s called ‘common courtesy’ but it’s not Robert’s rules – it’s just courtesy. Plus it makes common sense!
What do you mean by common sense? You may ask? Well it means that you second it to get it on the books and effectively off the books. It’s common practice to ensure proper debate and discussion. You therefore put up a proposal just to have it now dismissed and recorded that it was not accepted. So in affect, what you are doing, though you may not agree with a proposal, you are allowing for discussion. Now the topic doesn’t really have to be addressed again – it’s on the books as something that was not past – though of course you can effectively bring it up over and over – that’s what democracy is about. It’s like dating – you go out, you see if you like it i.e. you listen to the arguments or discussion and then you decide it’s not for you and only after you have had some time to think about it or discuss the idea do you say Yeh or Neh. Pretty simple way of holding a meeting.
Come on Patricia Mahan, be fair, run the city council like most democracies and have a fair debate – even if you get no debate putting it to a vote is better than saying ‘oh you didn’t get a seconder’. Do you get where I am coming from? Or are we all just prone to being ignorant by not getting all the facts? Because when one shuts down debate that’s what you are doing. In some countries it’s called a ‘dictatorship’ – something us American’s have been known to get upset about.
Oh and by the way as a Chair it’s not Kosher to have your own opinions on how matters go – that’s the reason you get appointed as chair – you are seen to be fair and knowledgeable. sigh….
©Letters From Silicon Valley 2008
Yesterday I had cause to go to Santa Clara Post office on Kiely. Today I had cause to go to Cupertino Post office on Stevens Creek. Talk about a night and day experience. I happen to know some of the people working at Kiely because I’ve been going there for a number of years. So they are always very courteous and very helpful and have something to share with y’all. Even at Cupertino that lady that helped me had a good chuckle when we discussed the ‘pressure of today’s society’ vs ‘life when we were growing up’. She happened to say well I guess life changed when we got color TV and I laughed and told her in our house we waited for years before we had a color TV because my dad was color blind. He didn’t see the point of a color TV. Mind you once we had it he couldn’t understand why we hadn’t had one earlier.
Well Santa Clara as nice as it is – is such an inconvenient place to go. You can’t park easily, you have to wait on Kiely most times before you can enter the site. You sit there on Kiely praying some maniac doesn’t plow into you! And then when you do finally leave the parking area you pray that you don’t reverse into someone else reversing! It’s a GEICO nightmare.
I’m sure this really doesn’t affect the Santa Clara City Council, after all why would they care? Why would they care about anything that doesn’t affect the main city councilors directly like: Mahan, Caserta or Moore? Every time I go in there and talk with locals you can hear the frustration in their voice about the parking and the wait to be served.
Now let me tell you about the office on Stevens Creek in Cupertino. Talk about a breeze where it comes to parking! No problem mate – take your pick of endless parking spots. Head to the line and wait approximately 1 minute before one of the five clerks are ready to serve you. Every station waiting to help you out. This is NO SANTA CLARA Kiely post office. I love my attendants at Kiely but Stevens Creek in Cupertino was a winner today! They rock.
What do we have to do in Santa Clara to get some great amentities? I know be like a five year old – rant and scream, kick and pout, wave and stomp, shout and point! Sour grapes for Santa Clara!
©Letters From Silicon Valley 2008
